Moving to Texas, any Expats there??
 

My wife and I will be moving to Texas in August but are finding it hard to find a home.

We are moving to Denton County and ideally wish to rent for a while before we settle down and buy something.

Are there any Expats in Denton County? We are looking at moving somewhere near Justin and wanted to see if anyone had info on places to rent. A local paper, anything.

Thanks.

We live in the Denton Co. part of Carrollton. Looking at the map, Justin is more north of Fort Worth than Dallas, towards the west of Denton Co.

Either of the major newspapers in the metroplex (Fort Worth Star-Telegram or Dallas Morning News) may have info. There's also a free book, The Apartment Guide, that comes out monthly and is available at supermarkets and other public areas, if it's an apartment you're looking for. The town of Denton may also have its own newspaper (I know we get a section with our Sunday DMN which is titled the Denton County Morning News (?)).

HTH, unfortunately I'm not too familiar with that part of the world....

p22

we're not in Texas yet - but my Visa interview is in London at the end of March, so hopefully by the summer we'll be deep in the heart of Texas.

We'll probably be living initially in Winnie, Texas - east of Houston and near Beaumont. All things being well, we'd like to stay around that area, close to my wife's family.

Re: Moving to Texas, any Expats there??
 

Hello there,
We are moving to Texas, (Nr Dallas - Tarrent County) in approx 4-7 weeks time. I can offer you this info: www.rentnet.com for apartment rental options. It's a pretty good site. Alternatively if you want to rent a house take a look at www.realtor.com and search in 'more search options' choose your desired area, price range and only tick the box for rental.
Can I ask what your reasons for leaving Georgia are? The reason I ask is that we were looking at living in Georgia but decided on Texas instead.

We're in Plano, just east of Denton. You'll have to give us a shout when you get here :)

When we last moved apartments we used Rent.com who have a pretty conprehensive list of rental properties in most areas of the US.

But here's the good bit:

If you find a rental and find a lease through Rent.com, they'll give you $100 if you put "Rent.com" on the referral section of the lease document and then fax it to them :)

...which means that even if you don't use Rent.com exclusively in your search, you should check whether Rent.com lists the place you end up renting, and if it does you should remember to put them on the lease.

Thanks for the info dbj1000.

My wife is a rebate fanatic and loves the idea of getting $100 back :D

We have two children too and she would prefer a house rather than an apartment (I don't really mind as I live in an apartment in England).

We're living in a rented "town house" (i.e. a terraced house in an apartment complex) which is very nice. It's on two floors, end-of-terrace with three bedrooms. At 1400 sq ft it's at the smaller end of these types of town house here in Plano, and it's costing us around $1500 per month in rent, if that's of any help.

This particular development is owned by Trammell Crow Residential Services, but there are many other developments of this type around.

PM me if you want any more info.

We are in Garland, but we are quite a way from where you will be I think.

We are renting a 2400 sq ft house for $1595 per month if that's any help on what prices you are looking at. Houses are generally more difficult to find than apartments but with four kids I like the privacy.

We just used a realtor who got all the local listings up on her computer and my husband went to view them all. We were originally looking in Rowlett and this one came up as it was not far from there and hubby liked it so here we are.

We have friends renting a big apartment in Plano for $1400 per month and they got some kind of sign up deal which gave them several months free.

Just a quick note on the signing deals. In most cases the minimum lease that these places will do is 6 months. The real deals come into play if you're prepared to sign for 12 months or more.

We got 3 weeks "free rent" on our first 6 month lease plus $300 "cashback", and no deals at all on our second lease (different apartments) but we wanted the town house enough that we didn't mind.

However, when we wanted to leave before the end of our lease they wanted 60 days notice PLUS 60 days penalty rent payment. Just remember that these legally binding lease contracts can contain some outrageous penalty clauses. Another example on our current lease is that if you need to stay ONE DAY beyond the end of the lease period, they will charge you a minimum of 60 days rent.

In our case we used polite persuasion (i.e. long angry calls to the company's head office) to avoid these penalties, but I thought I'd make you aware of them if you're not already.

Yes, that's very good advice our friends had to sign up for 13 months to get the rent free deal.

I'd also advise you actually come and view a few times before you rent. The pictures you see of the houses on the net look great but sometimes when you see them in real life they look pretty horrid - or have something really horrid next to them.

Also, if you have an idea of where you will be working, it's a good idea to drive the route between the place you are going to work and the place you are looking to live in at least once.

For some reason our friends didn't do that and now they are stuck with a really awful drive every day which they can't really do anything about as they've signed up for 13 months.

Re: Moving to Texas, any Expats there??
 

Where will you be working? Denton is quite a ways drive to Dallas, especially during rush hour, Highway 35 is possibly one of the worst roads for commuting.

By the way, I'm in Rowlett Texas.

I'm not sure where I will be working yet. Right now I'm a freelance web developer and would like to get back in an office.

I've been to Dallas a couple of times and looking forward to commuting on the interstates :scared:

I'm in Irving, TX just north of Dallas. I would recommend getting in contact with some relocation offices. In my area at least, there are simply loads of apartments. I had to find one in a day, so I simply didn't have time to visit them all. I found an Apartment Relocator office, she knew exactly who to call to find a place suitable and in my price range. Within an hour I had signed a lease!

Re: Moving to Texas, any Expats there??
 

We're in NW Fort Worth on Eagle Mountain Lake. Something to consider before you rent or buy is that there has been a large increase in the amount of gas exploration in Denton and North Tarrant counties. In some cases rigs are being set up near to residential areas causing severe noise pollution. So I would suggest finding an area that's well developed and has no room for an exploration company to start work.

Re: Moving to Texas, any Expats there??
 

Thanks for heads up.

So far we are struggling to find something. Our home in Georgia is on an acre of land and is a three bedroomed, two bathroomed house with a fenced in yard. We currently pay $635.00 per month but I can't find anything suitable in Denton for that price range.